Monthly Archives: November 2014

There was so much to say, I forgot so many things, stuttered and everything, but I were after all a bit quicker than when I rehearsed the presentation. Okay, I admit, I rehearsed it through only with myself, it felt too nervous to go through the presentation with my boyfriend or any other with whom I interact more than those whom I see only in the class… It just felt way too confusing.

But it was fun to moderate and moderate Prezi. But I’m not going to pay any more notice to the fact there were things that should have been white board and they weren’t. (Even minutes before presentation I tried to remodel Prezi, but the app doesn’t support Android…)

After the presentation I barely remembered what I had talked, and only hoped that someone had caught some information from my presentation, although I was so nervous and possibly unclear. I really tried to get it straight! (And it was funny that the next presentation was also about conversation analysis, and the next also about speech… I felt really sorry I had to leave early.)

It feels wonderful I can now concentrate to the other’s presentations!

Today in the lesson I got really excited about the presentation and especially about Prezi although I didn’t yet understand it fully I want to make more and more stuff with it and can’t wait the other course when we have to have presentations and I will get a possibility to use this cool aid! It feels just awful I don’t have at the moment more time to figure things out (having now just a pause in the cooking for forty persons)

I have kept reading the book of sequence organization. At the moment I’m getting to know the retro-sequence which in short means the conversation doesn’t move forward, the talkers are just talking about the matter and the adjacency pair has been completed long time. (This means I haven’t exactly got to the end of the book but I trust I don’t have time in my presentation to get very deep in the sequence organization.) Last year we didn’t really have enough time with all the types of expansions and retros have made me understand what post-expansions may also be.

My hunting for the opportunities to speak English haven’t really been hard enough but for example today I got hold of myself and talked with her longer than ever before.

I’m not so scared anymore, things have figured out: I’ve got to know what’s the essay and I’m now feeling just really nervous about the presentation. But my point this time is reading.

During this semester I have possibly more academic books than ever before in my studying time. That’s not only because of the English course but because I have done more exams of the faculty than before. I have for example read about theatre historiography and the angles of the study of the literature, and right now (and last half of a year) I have got to know the fairy tales and their importance. Before I have mainly read one book now and then but this fall has been a hard piece. Mostly the texts I’ve read about and of my field have been articles from different sources.

For the English course I wanted to take a book which I would have read last year if I would have gone to the same course and that time it would had have something to do with my other studies also. Last year I did my bachelor and therefore studied my field, conversation analysis and got to know the introduction book of Schegloff’s. Because of the long queues in the library I bought the book from the amazon, but didn’t have enough time to read the whole book even if I wanted. That is why it was really nice to get the chance and compulsion to read something own-field-related. Other books I have recently read have been about my minor subjects. Reading has been fun and nice because the terms have been common for me in comparison to the language and terms of the theatre science which surprises me continually. The harder side of the reading has been the fact that Schegloff uses way too often unbelievably long sentences. Every now and then I have no chance of remembering the beginning or the meaning of it when I come to an end of it…

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m reading Emmanuel Schegloff’s book Secuence Organization in Interaction, which is a basic handbook of the sequence organization. This means I’ve been and I’m studying how people in interaction talk about certain topics or move to the topic. The conversation analysis do not judge the talking of the people but tries to find out the ways of talking, how certain structures build up, trying to find out the theory of conversation like how the other knows when the speaker is going to end speaking or how people get over of the problems. Sequence means the part of the conversation which is of certain topic or moving towards or continuing it. The basic sequence includes adjacency pair, but may have expansions before, in the middle or afterwards.

Main part of the sequence organization is also preference which means that certain kind of first pair part (beginning of the adjacency pair) waits for certain kind of second pair part (last part of adjacency pair). Interesting about preference is that how people try not to answer unpreferred way, those times they answer after a moment, circle around the straight answer and try to make the unpreferred answer sound preferred. Fascinating! I’ll go back to read…

Recently I’ve had problems with my English course. I’m so afraid and extremely nervous with the course. I’m not sure what to do: there is presentation coming and I haven’t yet read my independent book through, I’m not sure what to put to my essay or am I writing about article which I’ve found or can I write about my book.

The problem is I don’t exactly know why I’m so afraid, I trust I’m capable of speaking and writing English quite properly at least with some help and preparation. Still I’m thinking about the course all the time and feeling very very nervous about it even when I’m trying to do my Estonian homeworks or to read short stories to literary course. I’ve had fun at the English course but about three last times I’ve not been myself: words don’t come out properly, writing is hard I don’t remember the words even as much as usually.

At home I feel bad if I’m not reading stuff for English course but to the becoming exam and other way round, even when the book for exam is also in English. I watch much videos and series in English and think about it how I’ve developed (but accidentally don’t write about it to my blog…), but it just feels those things doesn’t some way matter.

So, at the moment this all feels quite bad. Must find a way to make also this course my cup of tea!

P.S. I think I wasn’t quite clever when I didn’t do this course a year ago when I would have read same materials to my BA-stuff vs. now when I study mostly literature instead of conversation analysis (which I found as my field but not the main point this semester).